Richard Watts of Bonmahon (1810-1875)

Jane was described as 'spinster of this parish'. (Richard was described as 'bachelor, mariner' ('seaman' had been entered in the register and crossed out).) The witnesses were Elizabeth Taylor and Alfred John Taylor. These were probably a couple living in Oxford Street, Portsea in 1841. There were several Webbs living in Portsea at this time.

Jane had a sister, Sarah Webb, described as the daughter of William Webbey, pensioner. In 1841, their father William was a chief boatman in the coast guard, aged 60 at the coastguard station at Hayling Island. Sarah married George Derben, who also joined the coastguard. She ended up in Bonmahon and died in Waterford in 1906.

Sarah was the daughter of John and Rosanne Dawes, and had been baptized at Stradbally on 15 August 1848 on the same day as Matilda Watts. John Dawes was Richard Watts' next-door neighbour in Stradbally in 1850. He too had served in the waterguard, and had been transferred from the Isles of Scilly to Dunmore on 10 January 1832. (On 8 February 1844 he had been "promoted" to Ballymacaw, and on 30 March 1846 had moved to Bonmahon at his own request. He had died on 4 June 1855 on board HMS Duke of Wellington.) It seems that Sarah's sister, Rose Anna Dawes, married Thomas Buckley in 1875, and their children Tom and May subsequently married into the Watts family.

I next propose to give an instance of what can be done by the energy of the individual as contrasted with collectivism or co-operation. At the village of Bon Mahon, and close to the sea – a little spot which, within a hour of London, would soon be transformed into a miniature Brighton – is the Spring Valley Dairy, which was opened by Mr. Watts, an English trader, who settled down here some years ago with an Irish wife. Mr. Watts, who was a member of the Conference excursion parties of the British Dairy Farmers' Association on several occasions, died early in the year, having with great energy built up a series of industries which, for so small a village and so poor a district, are of an astronishing (a) character. This gentleman's son, to whom I am indebted for every detail, showed me everything in actual work. He employs 46 men, who are engaged in the creamery in butter blending, in bacon curing and packing, in the collection and packing of eggs for England, and in the operations of a considerable farm where 80 cows are milked and 200 pigs fed for slaughter, in addition to many which are purchased. Apart from all these departments, Mr. Watts sells feeding stuffs and manure to farmers, while his sisters manage a general shop and assist in the lighter work of the dairy. First with regard to the creamery. Apart from what is produced on the farm, milk is bought from 60 farmers, who receive from 3½ to 4½d per gallon. The milk separated varies from 800 gallons in the slack to 1,500 gallons in the busy season. Butter, too, is purchased, not only from farmers who use a separator, but from other creameries, this being intended for the wholesale trade. So far as the farmers are concerned the business is paractically a place of exchange. All the butter made on the premises is despatchted by post to England, at prices varying from 11d in the summer to 14d in the winter, plus the postage. I was astonished to hear that Mt Watts pays £500 a year to the Post Office on this account. So far as quality is concerned, I may mention that he has taken a prize in London, and his exhibit last year was very highly commended, while the quality of the milk is such that two quarter gallons produce a pound. The plant includes a Danish separator, which was being replaced by a large Laval. The butter-boxes are made on the premises, wood being purchased ready cut up and packed. The steam engine, which works up to twenty horse-power, drives the dairy maghinery, and the cooling plant, which includes a Hall's macnine; it also cooks the food for the stock, grinds the meal, and cuts the chaff. In this case the creamery is kept going through the winter, the owner's cows providing a good foundation. There is no extra cost for steam, as this is required by the bacon factory plant. The piggeries, which are substantially built and almost new, have concrete floors and courts, and are extremely well kept. The animals are fchiefly fed upon meal and skimmed milk, and are fed for sizable bacon of about 1½ cwt.The slaughtering and curing plant cost a large sum, and this business has turned the corner; but for some tie losses were sustained. The process adopted is practically the same as that whixh is carried out at the great factories at Limerick, although th work is on a smaller scale. Unsmoked sides are packed for London, where they are dried and smoked, and they sell as well as the best cured in Ireland. The offal in so small a place does not realise such high prices as elsewhere, although the demand is greater than the supply. The eggs, for which the demand is also much greater than the supply, are packed in boxes in dry straw and well branded. At the time of my inquiry, Mr. Watts was paying 15d a dozen, and this, added to the carriage and the cost of the boxes, brought up a six-dozen box to 1s 10d a dozen. I was permitted to inspect the cattle-house, the roots crops on the farm, and the young stock. The cattle were stalled in one large house, and fed on boiled roots and bran with maize meal, cotton cake, and hay. The young stock were exceptionally good, and must pay their owner handsomely; the roots were being lifted in the field and carted and packed against the wall of the cowhouse. There was a splendid crop of oats and abundance of hay. The land occupied by Mr. Watts costs £2 an acre, but the average land costs 25s. There is certainly room for expansion here. I was told that the farmers were in need of capital. The crops were fairly good, and the labourers receiving wages varying from 12s to 15s a week, but they are by no means a highly-skilled class of men.

3.1 RICHARD JAMES WATTS (1870-1919), born at Bonmahon on 21 October 1870.

He joined the masonic lodge in Waterford in 1895, a year after his brother William.

He took over his father's property after James' death in 1897, and in 1901 he was living with his mother in Bonmahon village. (As well as five family members, the inn also housed three visitors (one was Mary Elizabeth Tyndall, 24, married, born in Virginia, USA, accompanied by her Waterford-born ten-year-old son, Charles John), two servants, the gardener, and four employees (the bookkeeper, a shop assistant, an apprentice, and the creamery manager (a Michael O'Laughlin from Limerick.)) In the next few years, Richard acquired numerous parcels of land in the village.

Richard was Bunmahon's grocer, draper and creamery owner in 1905. By 1910, Watts and Co ran creameries in Bonmahon and also in Lemybrien. The steam heating for the creamery was technically very advanced, and a French engineer named Bouvier was brought over to set it up and maintain it.

He was the 'cousin Richard who milked the cows' mentioned by Clara Corin, Annie's daughter, on a visit in 1908. (Clara and her daughter Enid visited again in 1914.)

He married his first cousin, Maud Mary Buckley, known as May or Maisie, at Hackney, Middlesex in the third quarter of 1903.

May's cousin, Eveline Dawes, came to work briefly as book-keeper at the creamery in 1905, when she was 18.

Maisie was quite out of place in the society in remote Bonmahon. She had very quaint ideas. Drink was not allowed, so the pub had to go. Religious standards were to be observed. Animals too had rights - she did not approve of eating meat. Maisie felt it was wrong that a man of Dick's status and wealth should be hands on and so managers (so called!) should run the business (it is said that he was not even supposed to visit the farm land). That was the beginning of the end of the Watts Empire.

In 1911, May and Dick had been married for seven years, and had no children.

In 1914, Dick and May were living above the shop, with Dick's youngest sister, Violet. Dick died on 6 April 1919 at the age of 48, and was buried at Bonmahon church on 9 April. May inherited his property. She also looked after her deceased brother-in-law Davie's son, David. She moved in with her sister-in-law, Blanch Buckley at The Glebe, but after the Watts business collapsed, she returned to England, where her brother Herbert (Bertie) and older sister Anna Bessie Buckley lived. She was forced to take some menial jobs to make ends meet. She maintained her connections with Bonmahon, and David married a girl from the Stradbally area in the 1930s. May is shown as a ratepayer in Bonmahon until 1957. She died in 1964, "aged 84", and was buried at Bonmahon church on 17 February.

3.2 WILLIAM JOHN WATTS (1872-1912), born on 10 December 1872 at Bonmahon and aged 27 in 1901. He was known as Willie.

He joined the masonic lodge in Waterford in 1894.

He married Lucy Lavinia White, daughter of Matthew White, the local coastguard, on 21 August 1900. Lucy was only 18, and had been born, like most of her siblings, in County Dublin on 16 May 1882.

William at this time was an engine fitter "at works" - probably the creamery. He is famed for developing the portable creamery, "a large closed wagon, equipped with the latest dairying machinery and drawn by a traction engine. The shrill whistling of the engine, and the dense volumes of black smoke attending its progress, attracted a fascinated audience on its journeyings to and fro" between Bonmahon and Dunhill. The travelling creamery had been introduced in 1900: an article in the Waterford News reported:

We have been informed that Messrs Watts & Co., Bonmahon in this county are about to adventure upon a new departure in connection with their already successful creameries. This is nothing more or less than the establishment of a "travelling creamery" which will daily visit a large radius of country for collecting milk... (The) most modern separating plant will be utilised - it will be transacted from centre to centre.

A newspaper report of 1902reports on a village entertainment at Bonmahon school. It notes how the arrangments for all were carried out by Mr W J Watts, a young gentleman, who has on many previous occasions been instrumental in introducing amusements of various kinds into the community.

William died of a heart condition at the age of 40 on 12 December 1912. He was buried at Bonmahon church on 5 December. Lucy later moved to Portsmouth and lived with the Whitesides.

William and Lucy had four children:

3.3 LAURA MATILDA WATTS (1876-1943), born on 18 February 1876. She married Thomas Patrick Kennedy, an Annestown farmer, on 18 October 1905 They settled in Lemybrien. Laura died at Lemybrien on 19 August 1943. Patrick and Laura had three children:

3.4 MYRA ELIZABETH WATTS (1877-1878), born on 5 February 1877, who died of pneumonia, aged one, on 20 February 1878.

3.5 EMILY BLANCHE WATTS (1878-1960?), born on 31 July 1878 at Bonmahon and aged 22 in 1901. She was always known as Blanche.

On 7 August 1902, a stormy day with heavy seas, Blanch and a number of friends decided to go swimming. The beach at Bonmahon is treacherous in any bad weather as a rip tide cuts deep channels in the sand and in stormy weather must be avoided. Despite being advised otherwise the party went swimming. Many got into difficulty and both coastguard and local men then tried to save them.

A local man, Cornelius (Con) Sarsfield, saved Blanche. A coastguard, one Frederick Shaw, saved some others and then he was drowned, but the girl he was trying to save got back to shore with help from other helpers. Another girl died. Shaw was buried in a grave in Bonmahon churchyard just beside the final resting place of Blanch herself.

Blanch married her first cousin and sister-in-law's brother, Thomas Francis Buckley, on 29 April 1907. (There is a photograph in the Poole collection at the National Library of Ireland.)

The couple settled in Wealdstone, and were there in 1911, but when Blanch's brother, Dick, died in 1919, they returned to Bonmahon to help Maisie with the business.

A report in the Waterford News of 10 February 1928 revolved around a motoring accident which Tom had the previous 18 October. (A Mr Michael Foley was in the car with him.) The report described him as an egg dealer, a merchant and a butter buyer. He said he had been living in Bonmahon for about ten years.

Blanch and Tom lived in The Glebe. Tom is said to have kitted himself out in brogues and plus-fours to seem to be the gentleman from London coming to the rescue of Watts & Co, but he had little business ability. It is said that they were guardians of David's two children, Bruddie and Bixie, who actually owned the house. Blanch kept the books, and she and Maisie brought in a manager to help run the creamery. It was round about this time that the business ran down. Employees behaved dishonestly, for example:

• Farm workers: Instead of spreading slag fertiliser on fields, farmers sold it and put a shake of cement powder around the field entrance to make it look as though the slag was spread on the field. When Watts inspected, if he ever did, the dust showed on his boots and he went no further.
• Goods in transit: Goods moved between creameries often arrived short, the balance sold or stolen on route.
• Bacon: Hams and sides of bacon were commonly traded in the local pub for beer or cash. They left over the factory wall.
• Bread: Loaves were thrown over the wall at night just like the bacon.
• Overtime: Rarely worked but often claimed.
• Milk Churns: Churns would have sides of bacon slipped inside when emptied and skimmed milk poured over to hide the fact.
• Petrol: A driver would keep complaining how little his lorry returned to the tank and be selling off a few gallons a day. Stories are told of drivers saying that petrol was faulty and pouring the contents of tanks into the street to prove it, having topped up empty tanks with water to cover the earlier theft.

It is said that a strike in 1926 led to the final closure of the business. The buildings were left to become derelict and the business was "published in Stubbs Gazette" and declared bankrupt. The Bonmahon Main Street site: creamery, shop/pub, bakery, factory etc and about 20 acres was bought at the bankruptcy auction in 1928 by Nicholas Fitzgerald, and remained in his possession until 1944. The Waterford News of 2 November 1928 reported:

It is understood that Mr, Nicholas Fitzgerald, Spring Valley, Bonmahon, has purchased the interest in the business once carried on by Messrs Watts & Co. For over half a century, and up to a few years ago, Messrs Watts conducted an extensive general business, and in addition a bacon factory where upwards of 200 pigs were slaughtered for export weekly. Both establishments gave much needed employment to Bonmahon, and the village was looked upon as prosperous. In the days when the copper mines were working there, Bonmahon boasted a population of 3000, which has fallen now to below 200. The revival of an industry there will be good news for the residents. (One of the buildings was converted into a dance hall by Fitzgerald and many were pulled down, one to produce the pitch pine floor for the dance.) (From 1933, the "house, shop, dance hall, offices, yard and garden" are recorded as being occupied by his daughter Elizabeth ('Lill'), who later became Mrs E.M. Kennedy.)

Blanch and Tom had a son:

3.6 DAVID VALENTINE WATTS (1882-1918), born on 13 February 1882, and known as Davie. He was a dental anaesthetist and, according to an advertisement in the Waterford Times of 31 March 1911, a dental surgeon in Kilmacthomas. He had a good reputation. One old man used to say "the only fillings that had never fallen out were those that were put in by young Davie Watts". His main practice is said to have been at Clonmel. He also practised at Carrick-on-Suir. He was single and living with his brother Dick in 1911. He married Elizabeth Sarah Brown, the daughter of Joseph Brown, a farmer of Kilmacthomas at Rossmire parish church on 28 August 1912. He was one of the owners of the Glebe.

Although David died at Carrick-on-Suir on 29 November 1918 during an influenza epidemic, his death was not registered until 1925. His wife is said to have died in the same epidemic. The couple are buried just under the east window of Rossmire (Kilmacthomas) parish church.

David and Betty left two children, Blanch (known as Bixie) and David (known as Buddie), who inherited the Glebe. They were looked after by guardians, their aunts and uncle, David by Maisie Watts and Blanch by Blanch and Tom Buckley.

3.7 JAMES ALFRED SOUDAN WATTS (1884-1885), born at Bonmahon on 17 June 1884, and who died of measles on 29 July 1885, aged 13 months. He was buried the next day at Bonmahon.

3.8 VIOLET SARAH WATTS (1890-1924), known as Vi. She was born on 1 September 1890. She was living at home in Bonmahon in 1905, and with her brother Dick in 1911. She married a cousin, Eddie Andrews, on 11 January 1921. Robert Dawes and Thomas Francis Buckley were the witnesses. She died in childbirth a nursing home in Cork on 20 July 1924 (though her death was only registered in 1933, and her age (misleadingly!) recorded as 42).

Robert had been born in County Waterford, probably in 1852. He had a drapery business, describing himself as a manufacturer's agent. He had married Martha Cuolahan in Dublin in 1876. They had several children, including Robert (1877), Hugh (1880), Mabel (1881-1888), Violet (1885 (or 1877?)), Eveline Victoria (1887), Percy (1889) and Kathleen (1890). (Eveline became book-keeper at the Watts creamery about 1905, but left soon after to marry Duncan Lamont, a Scottish mining engineer.) Martha died, probably in 1890. After Tillie went to America, Robert remained in Dublin. He was at 59 Beechwood Avenue Upper in Rathmines in 1911, and remarried later that year to Fanny Cuolahan, who was probably born in 1868 and some 16 years younger than him. He died of pneumonia at 58b Rathmines Road, Dublin on 1 February 1928, aged 75.

8.1 MABEL GERTRUDE DOWNS (1879-19??), born on 23 December at 14 Emarel(?) Place, Limerick. She married Stevens Richard Goff on 30 April 1930 at St Mary's Church, Donnybrook, Dublin.

8.2 REGINALD JOHN DOWNS (1882-19??), born at 2 Glengariff Parade, Dublin, on 25 December 1882.

8.3 THOMAS ALFRED DOWNS (1886-1916), born at 193 Clonliffe Road, Coolock, North Dublin on 26 April 1886. He was a railway clerk in 1909, living at 18 Glenarm Avenue, Drumcondra, when he married Jane King (Jeanie) at Trinity Church, Limerick. He died of tuberculosis on 10 July 1916. In 1911 the family were at 37 Great Western Square, Arran Quay, Dublin with theirn one-year-old son:

Thomas had been born in Chelsea, England, on 18 April 1859. His father had been invalided out of the Royal Artillery, and had moved to Limerick in the 1860s. The young Thomas had worked in Limerick from 1874 to 1880 as a telegraph operator, apparently for the first four years in the postal service (although postal staffing records only mention his brother John and his sister Harriet), and then for a commercial telegraph company. He had joined the Compagnie Française des Câbles Télégraphiques at Liverpool in September 1880 and had been transferred to Cape Cod in 1882, according to his contract.

9.1 LIONEL VICTOR DOWNS (1886-1966), born in Eastham, Massachusetts, on 22 November 1886. By 1910, he was living in Brooklyn, New York and working as a collector for the New York Telephone Company. He married Cora Edna Snyder on 25 August 1911. Cora died on 1 December 1961, and Lionel died on 19 March 1966.

9.2 JOHN WILLIAM DOWNS (1888-1959), born in Eastham, Massachusetts, on 23 August 1888. He was grandfather of Bill Downs, one of the contributors to these notes. He worked in insurance, and later became a lawyer, specializing in insurance matters. He married Helen Susan Hopkins on 22 September 1914 in Somerville, Massachusetts. He died on his 45th wedding anniversary, on 22 September 1959.

9.3 EDGAR THOMAS DOWNS (1890-1958), born in Eastham, Massachusetts, on 24 December 1890. He married Eola May Davis on 29 April 1915. He died on 8 November 1858. Eola, his widow, died on 7 March 1961.

9.4 CYRIL WINFRED DOWNS (1896-1965), born in Orleans, Massachusetts, on 25 December 1896. He married Frances Dorothea Hatch on 18 October 1920. He died on 1 October 1965 and his widow died on 1 January 1981.

9.5 NORMAN ALDEN DOWNS (1898-1966), born in Orleans, Massachusetts, on 23 November 1898. He married Ina Mary Anderson on 19 September 1925. He died on 3 April 1966.

9.6 REGINALD VALENTINE DOWNS (1902-1952), born in Orleans, Massachusetts, on 12 February 1902. He married Ruth Hughes on 23 July 1932. He died on 16 January 1952.

David had been born on 14 April 1850. He and his and his elder brother, John, were from the family of Glasgow brewers, but their father was a blacksmith, and they had turned the smithy into a scrap metal business. It is said that David was in Bonmahon to buy machinery from a closing copper mine. Sarah was some ten years younger. The story goes that they were driving in David's private jaunting car when he proposed.

10.1 JOHN YOUNGER (1882-1945), born in the Gorbals, Glasgow on 18 August 1882. He received a B.Sc. in Engineering from Glasgow University. He served an aprenticeship in locomotive manufacturing. The Knowledge Bank of Ohio State University contains a recollection of his apprenticeship (OS_ENG_v25_i05_011.pdf) He became workshop supervisor of the Woolwick Arsenal in London from 1902 to 1904; then in 1905 he was in charge of Tool Engineering at the Arrol-Johnston Motor Car Company in Glasgow. From 1906-1910 he was assistant work manager of Dennis Brothers, manufacturers of motor trucks, in Guildford.

He married Muriel Emily Stoneham in the Camberwell registration district on 31 July 1907. They emigrated to the United States in 1910. David travelled first, arriving via Quebec on 18 September, and Muriel with their young son, David, came on the SS St Louis from Southampton at the end of October.

John held a variety of positions. From 1911 to 1917 he was Chief Engineer at Pierce-Arrow, motor manufacturers in Buffalo NY. He worked for the United States government during World War I, when he served in Washington DC as Chief of Engineering in the Motor Transport Corps and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He was vice president of the Standard Parts Company in Cleveland from 1920 to 1923. He was also associate editor of the American Machinist from 1923 to 1926.

In 1926 he was in charge of setting up Ohio State University's Industrial Engineering department, which grew to be one of the largest in the College of Engineering, with the only course in welding engineering in the United States. He was known by his students as "Chief". He listed his hobbies as golf and photography. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage at home, 1836 Chelsea Road, Upper Arlington, Franklin County, Ohio in 14 November 1945.

10.2 JANE ANNA YOUNGER (1883-??), known as Dottie, born on 25 December 1883 at 51 Cumberland Street, Glasgow. She remained at home with her mother until Sarah remarried. In 1929, she married Thomas Bonner Morley, who had been born in Govan on 21 November 1881. He was a widower with three children from his previous marriage, of whom Dottie was very fond. He had been an assistant professor at Glasgow University, but at this time was working for Galloways Ltd. designing large gas and uniflow steam engines. Thomas joined Manchester College of Technolgoy in 1933, and two years later, became head of the Engineering Department at Sunderland Technical College, specializing in automotive engineering. In 1939 the couple were at 46 Newlands Avenue, Sunderland. Thomas died in his sixtieth year on 20th February 1941.

10.3 DAVID ALEXANDER YOUNGER (1886-1954), born in the Gorbals, Glasgow. He went to Canada in May 1911 aboard the SS Lake Manitoba. He submitted a homestead application for Griffin Creek (which became Berwyn in 1922) in January 1913. He married Margaret Fyfe Greenwood Irvine, known as Madge, in Glasgow in 1919. He died at Duncan on Vancouver Island on 5 March 1954. Margaret survived him, dying on 12 June 1960. They had a daughter: